I just can't believe this. About a month ago we received notice from the IRS about a problem with a 2010 tax return, the problem is, it wasn't our tax return. It was addressed to some guy named Anthony L. ----, I am trying to protect his identity unlike the IRS. It had an address pretty similar to ours, but not exactly. The address is not a valid address as it is written for anywhere in our town, but we are as close as the P.O. could get, I suppose, since the street number is correct at least. We called the IRS, told them his name, etc., and what had happened. That agent took the information and told us to destroy the information and they would take care of it.

What shows up in the mail today, a second notice to the same guy. I now know that the IRS thinks he owes them a large chunk of change for some sales of stock that took place in 2010, but that apparently he didn't report. BTW, one of the stocks was Apple, just thought that was funny.

So, I call the IRS, wait on hold for about 45 minutes, then get told that this lady can't do anything to help me and that I should call another number. She said she couldn't discuss his information with me, since I wasn't him. I told her I already had all his information, and that I didn't want it.

I feel very sorry for this guy. He is incurring interest every day this thing runs, and he doesn't even know it. I am now on hold, again, for this second person. What are the odds that they will be any help? Don't worry about your credit card number getting stolen, worry about the IRS sending it to some random person.

Still on hold.....

Edit: Still on hold. Going on 25 minutes now. This is trying my Good Samaritan genes right now. Good thing I decided to make and eat my dinner while on hold the last time, or I would be starving right now.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2012 05:31PM by rgG.

Google his name and SS# and see what comes up.

Also, was his last name 'Soprano' by any chance? Maybe he's sending a big FU to the IRS.

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Nothing to see here, move along.

Well, rg, good thing you are doing there for old Anthony, even if he doesn't know it! Wow, the gubmint...

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ztirffritz
Google his name and SS# and see what comes up.

Also, was his last name 'Soprano' by any chance? Maybe he's sending a big FU to the IRS.

Tried that, no joy.

Now that I have the name of his brokerage firm, where he sold the stock, I may try to give them a call tomorrow and see if they can help at all. After all, I have his SS# for identification.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

Be careful of a scam... If someone calls from the IRS and demands to speak to this person and doesn't believe you when you say that he isn't there. You prove it by saying, "I'm not joe blow, SS# 000-00-0000, I'm MY REALNAME, SS# 123-45-6789"

My mom fell for something like this years ago and didn't realize what had happened until she hung up the phone.

don't worry, they'll find him.

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hal
Be careful of a scam... If someone calls from the IRS and demands to speak to this person and doesn't believe you when you say that he isn't there. You prove it by saying, "I'm not joe blow, SS# 000-00-0000, I'm MY REALNAME, SS# 123-45-6789"

My mom fell for something like this years ago and didn't realize what had happened until she hung up the phone.

Yes, yes! I would just mail it to the IRS, be done with it.

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rgG
I feel very sorry for this guy. He is incurring interest every day this thing runs, and he doesn't even know it. I am now on hold, again, for this second person. What are the odds that they will be any help? Don't worry about your credit card number getting stolen, worry about the IRS sending it to some random person.

Chances are that the IRS is claiming Anthony owes much more than he actually owes, as they would be assuming ALL the gross proceeds reported were profit. Anthony needs to file an amended return ASAP indicating the actual cost basis for the stock so that at least his new assessment will be correct.

God luck finding Anthony. The IRS will eventually attach his bank account if this is not resolved, though it will take them awhile to get to that level. This is a busy season for the IRS, you may have better success dealing with them in a few weeks.

Well, I finally talked to a second lady and she was pretty snotty to me and said that I should not have even opened the envelope we should just write that no one by that name lived here and we should put it back in the mailbox.

I told her that since it was our address, or mostly our address, and that I didn't know whether it was actually to us and had a wrong name or it was to him and had a wrong address, that I opened it. Also, I told her this was not what the first person told us to do with the first letter, she told us to destroy it, so you never get the same info twice. I told her that I would put it back in the mailbox with the "no one here by that name" on it, and that I would do the same with the next one that I expect to get in about a month.

Since I had spent about two hours of my time on this, and was just trying to do the right thing, she could at least have been nice.

Just an aside, a friend of my husband's said they got TWO different letters from the IRS address to two different people who didn't live at their address, about a week or two after we got the first letter. I guess this just proves that your shouldn't think your info is safe, even with people who are supposed to be guarding your information.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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rgG
I told her that I would put it back in the mailbox with the "no one here by that name" on it, and that I would do the same with the next one that I expect to get in about a month.

We frequently get mail for other people that have never lived here. At first we'd stick a Post-It note saying "No Such Person/Return to Sender" on it and put it back in the mailbox. The next day it would be gone but then the day after or so it would be back without the Post-It note. My wife learned from her Mail Carrier at work that you need to cross out the bar code because the USPS uses that to route it back in the deliveries. So, now we take a Sharpie and cross out the bar code, the entire address and write directly on it "No Such Person/Return to Sender" since doing that we've yet to have one come back but we still get new pieces from time-to-time.

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DewGuy

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rgG
I told her that I would put it back in the mailbox with the "no one here by that name" on it, and that I would do the same with the next one that I expect to get in about a month.

We frequently get mail for other people that have never lived here. At first we'd stick a Post-It note saying "No Such Person/Return to Sender" on it and put it back in the mailbox. The next day it would be gone but then the day after or so it would be back without the Post-It note. My wife learned from her Mail Carrier at work that you need to cross out the bar code because the USPS uses that to route it back in the deliveries. So, now we take a Sharpie and cross out the bar code, the entire address and write directly on it "No Such Person/Return to Sender" since doing that we've yet to have one come back but we still get new pieces from time-to-time.

We've received an IRS notice for someone who never lived in our house (new construction and we are the first owners). I crossed out the address and bar code with a Sharpie and put it in a real post office mailbox. A month later, we got another. Same thing. I received #3 last week.

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DavidS

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DewGuy

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rgG
I told her that I would put it back in the mailbox with the "no one here by that name" on it, and that I would do the same with the next one that I expect to get in about a month.

We frequently get mail for other people that have never lived here. At first we'd stick a Post-It note saying "No Such Person/Return to Sender" on it and put it back in the mailbox. The next day it would be gone but then the day after or so it would be back without the Post-It note. My wife learned from her Mail Carrier at work that you need to cross out the bar code because the USPS uses that to route it back in the deliveries. So, now we take a Sharpie and cross out the bar code, the entire address and write directly on it "No Such Person/Return to Sender" since doing that we've yet to have one come back but we still get new pieces from time-to-time.

We've received an IRS notice for someone who never lived in our house (new construction and we are the first owners). I crossed out the address and bar code with a Sharpie and put it in a real post office mailbox. A month later, we got another. Same thing. I received #3 last week.

Yeah, I have very little hope that this is over. I just feel sorry for the guy and that I can't get any help from the IRS people. This was a window envelope and I don't know if it had a bar code or not. I think I may walk up to the mailbox and check for that.

We are the first owners of this house and have lived here since 1989, so I know this is just a screw up where someone input the wrong name with the wrong address.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

DavidS and rgG—If you see black helicoptors hovering overhead, run for it!

Sorry to hear you had problems with the IRS "customer service." I have found them to be very polite whenever I have called.

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Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?
Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes.

Western Massachusetts

Well, I walked up to the mailbox and crossed out the bar code. I still expect to get another one.

You wonder how many others like this there are.

Blooz,
The other times I have talked to them, they have been nice. Today they were less than helpful, the first person, and the second was just, how shall I put this, bitchy.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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rgG
So, I call the IRS, wait on hold for about 45 minutes, then get told that this lady can't do anything to help me and that I should call another number. She said she couldn't discuss his information with me, since I wasn't him. I told her I already had all his information, and that I didn't want it.

Sweet, sweet irony.

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RIP, Greg the DogSitter. You are missed.

yeah, why did you open it? Isn't it a federal offense to open someone else's mail? Black out the bar code, write "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS, RETURN TO SENDER" and move on. Save 2 hours on hold, and lots of frustration. It's not your job to solve this guys' tax mess.

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space-time
yeah, why did you open it? Isn't it a federal offense to open someone else's mail? Black out the bar code, write "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS, RETURN TO SENDER" and move on. Save 2 hours on hold, and lots of frustration. It's not your job to solve this guys' tax mess.

And we have seen how well this has worked for DavidS already, haven"t we. Also, this isn't what the first IRS person we talked to told us to do, the first time it happened. She told my husband to destroy the information, not to put it back in the mailbox.

The reason we opened the first one is because I had received a notice from the IRS a few days before that said I had not filed a tax return. I called and they admitted they were wrong, they had received our tax return and i had a copy in front of me. Since they only had my name on the notice, and we file a joint return, they said that we might get another notice about this, sent to my husband, in a few days. When the first letter to this guy came, I thought it might be for my husband and that they might have gotten the name wrong, so I opened it to see whether the address was wrong or the name was wrong. When we saw that it was not a notice like the one I had gotten, we called to see what they wanted us to do. They said destroy the contents and they would handle it from there on. Never did they say to mark out the name and put it back in the box. If they had said to do this we would have, and we have done the same today.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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space-time
yeah, why did you open it? Isn't it a federal offense to open someone else's mail? Black out the bar code, write "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS, RETURN TO SENDER" and move on. Save 2 hours on hold, and lots of frustration. It's not your job to solve this guys' tax mess.

Unless the envelope is specifically labelled "do not open unless you are the recipient on the address", if it is in my box addressed correctly and that person doesn't live here and never has, it's my mail to do with as I please. I'll wipe my ass with it if it pleases me.

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rgG


And we have seen how well this has worked for DavidS already, haven"t we.

The same as waiting two hours on hold.

I write "NO SUCH PERSON AT THIS ADDRESS" in Sharpie on the envelope and put a diagonal line thru the address (striking out the barcode is a good idea) and put it back in my mailbox.

Actually I usually I write "MOVED" or "MOVED IN 2008" - since most of the mail and all the IRS contacts have been for the previous owners.

Typically either they have a process for correcting addresses from returned mail (esp if they have address correction requested on the envelope) or they don't have a process at all. A call from a stranger is not part of the address correction process at most places.